It looked a bit like a bright comet streaking towards the horizon over Australia, but orbit watchers say it was actually the third stage of a Russian Soyuz rocket re-entering the atmosphere.

Numerous eyewitnesses caught the show in the skies over Victoria and southeast Australia Friday evening. The fiery bit of space junk blazed a distinct and wide path across the sky, a display that was far more defined and prolonged than your typical meteoroid burning up as a fleeting fireball overhead.

There were no reports of any part of the rocket impacting the ground, but the sight does harken back to the legendary crash of part of the Skylab space station in rural Australia. Local authorities jokingly sent NASA a citation for littering.